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Rocky never saw it coming. In a white-walled room near the midway, Nancy Frost’s scissors make the fatal incision. The raccoon’s polystyrene guts spill out. It is for the best.

Frost didn’t find any defective toys today, but this is what she would do if she had.

“We have to cut the nose, the ears, the bum, the feet. We demolish it,” she said.

Frost works for Ontario’s Upholstered and Stuffed Articles Program; this week, it’s her job to make sure the stuffed animals at The Ex aren’t packed with dirty, second-hand, or improperly labelled material.

As Toronto children wobble out the Princes’ Gates with plush prizes clutched in their arms, she has her work cut out for her.

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And her scissors brandished.

Frost is the nanny state incarnate: all year, she scours the province for duvets, pillows, and stuffed toys that don’t pass regulatory muster. (Her program is under the umbrella of the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, a provincial watchdog.)

While the CNE is on, Frost’s work centres on the midway. Her pleasant appearance belies her gruesome task. Strolling amidst the booths in a white blouse and Prada glasses, game operators call out to her — “Wanna play? Prize every time!” — before being slightly shocked by her always-polite reply. “I’m Nancy Frost,” she says. “I’m an inspector with the Technical Standards and Safety Authority. I’m here to look at your stuffed toys.”

(Carnies, she says, “are much more presentable” than they used to be.)

Frost then stands patiently at the counter and asks teenage employees to retrieve various toys, which she picks at random: a tiny Smurf, a pumpkin that talks when you squeeze it, a stuffed Bob Marley in questionable taste.

She gropes each one for about half a minute. Mostly, she’s feeling for plastic beads, which can be dangerous — kids might chew through a teddy’s paw and choke on the contents.

If she has a reasonable suspicion that something’s amiss, she’ll open the toy up. Frost carries a translucent, green bag that contains the red cardboard labels she sticks on problematic toys; titanium non-stick scissors for the incision; and blue latex gloves for rifling through polyester innards.

Ontario’s first stuffing law came into effect in 1938. Before that, the industry was rife with gross practices — teddy bears were sometimes stuffed with unwashed nylon stockings.

“Back then you had a lot of shoddy pieces,” Frost said.

Globalization brought in a new wave of sketchiness, as stuffed animals came to be made in developing countries with lax sanitation standards.

A year ago, the TSSA got a question from an offshore manufacturer — Frost wouldn’t say in what country — wondering if they could stuff their teddy bears with second-hand clothing. “If somebody’s asking, you know there are lots who aren’t,” Frost said.

Blankets and pillows are even dodgier. Frost once got a call from a woman whose son had been scratched by his duvet; she found a dead rat in it. (It was shrivelled, but she could tell it had been alive while it was in the blanket — there were fecal and urine stains inside. She eventually traced the rodent to an offshore factory.)

Another time, Frost found feces in a sofa cushion. “Probably a disgruntled employee,” she said.

The nastiest thing she’s ever discovered in a stuffed animal was grey, fluffy pulp that looked like it had come out of a vacuum cleaner. “I’m sorry, but that’s just gross,” Frost scoffed.

Before Frost started at the TSSA, a child went into anaphylactic shock after playing with an unlabelled toy packed with peanut shells. A colleague once found kerosene in a Cabbage Patch Kid.

The last time Frost had to disembowel a teddy was two years ago. The infraction? Its label failed to say it contained polystyrene, the innocuous, squeaky material used in cheap coffee cups.

As a girl, Frost had a “precious” Stieff bear stuffed with straw.

But she doesn’t feel squeamish about tearing other teddies to shreds, she said. “I only open when I have just cause.”

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